Dental SEO: A Comprehensive Guide For 2022

Dental SEO in its simplest form is exactly what it sounds like. 

It is the process of optimizing the digital marketing efforts of dental practices to target better performance on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Like every other well-rounded SEO project, this requires on-site as well as off-site efforts.

Dental practices that take SEO seriously can reap multiple benefits: 

• They can generate a steady stream of patient traffic 
• They can increase online credibility, leading to even more patients 
• People will find you quickly when they look for related services on Google

There are several other advantages of Dental marketing SEO, but we will get to that in a bit. 

Let us first understand how implementing SEO for dentists can help them get more patients. For this, we will assess the ROI that can be achieved from Dental SEO.

So, what is a new dental patient worth?

Calculating this is fairly easy and requires you to consider four primary parameters: 

• Average patient lifespan
• Average value of the patient
• Number of patients acquired through SEO
• Average cost of implementing your SEO strategy

For instance, if the average value of a patient per year is calculated to be $800, with an average patient lifespan of 10 years, the total value for a single patient over those 10 years will be $8000.

Now, say your SEO strategy is able to bring only 8 customers to your website every month, you would have an average of 96 patients per year through SEO. So, considering the aforementioned average lifespan of 10 years, these patients would contribute a lifetime value of $768,000. 

Once you have calculated the lifetime value, all you need to do is figure out how much you spend for your SEO every year, and divide it by the calculated lifetime value, to get the ROI. This metric will essentially let you know the amount of patient revenue you can generate for every $1 spent on SEO.  

Why Your Dental Practice Should Invest in SEO and Content Marketing

Your website and digital presence are definitely precious assets for your business. These assets are investments that you bank on for fetching returns in the long run. 

SEO and Content Marketing are two approaches that you can take towards capitalizing on these assets. While SEO can offer better visibility and higher organic traffic to your website, content marketing can solidify these efforts and position you as an authority in dentistry. 

As of 2020, 64% of marketers are investing time in SEO strategies and 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. 

Nearly 49% of users say that they Google a product or service before making a purchase decision. So, you need the marriage of SEO and content marketing to bring more new patients to the clinic. 

Plus, based on the kind of ROI generated by SEO as you just witnessed, is it even that much of an investment?

For your ease, we have curated a list of content marketing trends that you should leverage in 2021 and beyond.

Dental Practices that are Investing Heavily in SEO

To put the importance of SEO for dentists into context, take a look at how these dentists are changing the game. These dentists have a leg up in the competition due to their investment in SEO and content marketing.

• Orthodontics Limited – Philadelphia

Orthodontics Ltd. is a reputed name in the field of dentistry, especially if a patient wants to get Invisalign or braces. With three offices in the area, the dental brand serves almost the entire Greater Philadelphia. Orthodontics has an up-to-date website with an active blog section, and a comprehensive gallery containing patients’ before and after pictures, reviews, and testimonials.

Moreover, the brand has an up-to-date Google My Business listing, and social media presence on platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest. More importantly, the dental chain targets high-performing keywords related to dentistry and orthodontics.

• Kate Brayman DDS – New York City

Kate Brayman is another dentist who has invested smartly in designing a user-friendly website that acts as her virtual clinic. Patients can easily book appointments on the website and understand more about the services that she provides. 

The content on her website has been created keeping in mind the SEO best practices and includes keywords that will perform well in Local SEO and otherwise. The live chat asks users to choose from a list of actions that users are most likely to interact with on the website. 

• Ocean Breeze Prosthodontics – Miami

Ocean Breeze Prosthodontics is a dental practice located at Delray Beach in Miami — a fact that you would know from the moment you see the website. The dental practice provides a wide range of treatments and dental services that have been detailed on the website. 

Patients can get a better idea about the dentist’s areas of expertise from the home page, as well as the blogs that can help patients in making decisions about their dental care. The FAQs on the home page are not only SEO-friendly but also provide instant answers to miscellaneous questions that they may have upon visiting the website. 

There is also an option to book appointments from the website, in addition to a live chat assistant who can guide you through the entire process. 

Now that you know why SEO for dentists is a worthy investment, you must be eager to get started. Let’s go!

Dental SEO Initial Setup

Before you go deeper into the world of Dental SEO and Marketing, you need to set up valuable tools that will help you in the process. Two of the most crucial tools in this regard are — Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Setting up Google Search Console

When you are setting up your SEO strategy, the first thing you need to know is that Google Search Console is your best friend, going forward. Here is a simple, step by step process to set up your Google Search Console: 

Step 1: Sign in with your Google account

The first step is simple and obvious. You start by signing in to Google Search Console, with your Google account. And yes, doing this is completely free.

Step 2: Add a Property

Once you sign up, the first prompt you will get is to add a property — a domain, URL, mobile app, or device with a unique tracking id. We have the option to proceed by entering a domain or a URL Prefix. We suggest that you enter a domain (name of your website), which will essentially include all your subdomains and web pages. Click ‘Continue’ to create a single domain-level property that includes the entire website.

Optional: Alternatively you can also choose to proceed using a URL prefix, but that would limit your property to that specific URL on your domain.

Step 3: Verify Website

If you chose to add your domain as your property in the previous step, then you can verify your website through your DNS provider. See if you can find your DNS provider in the drop-down menu provided in the next window. If not, select “Any DNS Service Provider”. Next, click ‘Copy’ to copy the TXT generated by Google. 

After this text is copied, log into the domain registrar’s website using your account credentials, and access the option to manage your DNS records.

Find the option that asks you for your “TXT Value” or “TXT Record”, and add the copied text when prompted.

Now, go back to your Google Search Console setup and click on ‘Verify’. If everything went well, you should be able to see a confirmation on the verification process. 

If you run into any issues while doing this, or choose the URL prefix option in the last step, you’ll find a detailed explanation of the fixes and process.

Step 4: Submit Your Sitemap

If you have followed this step-by-step process perfectly, and already got your website verified, well done! You are all set to take the final step towards setting up your website for indexing in Google SERPs. 

The final thing that you need to do is submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. Find the ‘Sitemap’ option on the GSC interface, submit the URL of your sitemap to prompt Google to start crawling and indexing that page.

Setting Up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is another crucial tool that can aid your SEO strategy, however, setting it up can be tricky. Here is a simple 4-step process to go about it:

Step 1: Setup Your Account 

Sign in to create your account on Google Analytics, wherein you would also need to enter your Account name and check the data sharing settings. Once done, click ‘Next’.

Step 2: Setup Your Property

In the next step, you will be asked for the property name, time zone, and currency. Fill out this information correctly, and then click ‘Next’.

Step 3: Add your Business Information

In this step, pick your industry category as ‘Health’. Then input the size of your clinic, and other required information. Once done, click ‘Create’.

Then, you will be prompted to read and accept the terms and conditions. 

Step 4: Generate Tracking ID

Once you accept the terms and conditions, your account on Google Analytics is now created and ready. Next, you would need to select the platform on which you want to run analytics, your website URL, and your stream name, among other important information.

Click ‘Create stream’ to generate your tracking ID. The tracking ID is your unique identification number that would pinpoint Google Analytics to your website. Copy the tracking ID and paste it into your website’s <head> section.

This tracking ID is similar to a personal identification number, so you should refrain from sharing it publicly. Your Google Analytics account is now ready to use.

Keyword Research for Dental SEO

Now that you have set up the most essential tools that are required for driving your website’s SEO performance, we can delve deeper into your SEO strategy. 

The first thing to discuss here is, of course, Keyword Research. Back when SEO was still a concept in its infancy, keywords were the key thing to consider for a website to rank on Google. While other metrics have now gained importance, the quality of your keywords remains an important ranking factor. 

Finding the right keywords for your website content is quite easy now that there are many free and paid tools for the task. One of the simplest ways to find some of the high-performing keywords is by letting Google autocomplete your query, along with the section at the bottom of the SERPs where a list of keywords related to your current search appears. 

Apart from these tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush are reliable.

Keyword Intent

Apart from finding the right keywords, identifying the keyword intent is also crucial to target new patients. Let us tell you why this is important.

While some patients might be looking for a dentist urgently to tackle a sudden dental issue, some might just be browsing to know the best dentists in their area. The former are more likely to take a quick decision, so redirecting them to your website will be more beneficial. 

When it comes to identifying the keyword intent, long-tail keywords can be a boon. For instance, a user who searches for “best dentist for root canal near me” is more likely to become your patient, than someone who is looking for “best dentists in San Diego”. The first user has clear purchase intent, whereas the latter might just be researching for future reference. 

It helps to conduct thorough keyword research by considering different parameters. As a dental practice looking for new patients, your focus should be on two primary parameters: your location, and the services you provide. 

Highlighting your services in the keywords you use is an assured way to immediately increase patient flow. As highlighted above, users that have a specific search term including a dental issue are more likely to make an immediate appointment. So, integrating keywords that highlight your services will help you target these users. 

Moreover, geographical specificity can also help you rank higher on the SERPs and get immediate results. So be as specific as possible while integrating keywords. 

Say, you have a dental practice in New York, and you are targeting “dentists in new york” or “best dentists in new york”, you are less likely to rank at the top due to high competition, even if the search volumes are high. But the chances of patients finding you improve if you integrate a keyword like “dentist in Brooklyn”, as the competition is lower. 

Still, you should also integrate the most commonly searched head keywords such as “dentists near me” or “dental surgeon near me” so that Google can index your practice higher if the search location matches yours.

Optimize Local SEO for Dental Services

As a dental practice that is looking to grow, you need to be proactive about optimizing your SEO strategy to be visible and rank better in local search results. Local SEO has been proven to produce better results for brick-and-mortar businesses. In fact, nearly 46% of all searches demonstrate a local intent.

For your business to perform well in terms of Local SEO, you need to start by optimizing your Google Maps and Google My Business listings. Let’s see how you can go about it.

Optimize Google My Business Listing

The first leg on the journey of readying your business for better performance on Local SEO entails having a Google My Business listing. While creating the listing, your goal should be to provide all the information that the user is likely to need when they come across your listing. 

Start by running a primary search on Google to know whether a listing already exists for your business. If your dental practice has been around for a while, you might already have a listing on Google, and just need to claim it. If not, you can create one in a few simple steps.

Here is a step-by-step process to guide you through the process of optimizing your Google My Business listing. 

Step 1: Create a Google My Business account

Creating a Google My Business Profile works just like creating an account on any other website. Sign in to Google My Business, with your business email id and then click ‘Next’. 

You will get suggestions that are similar to your business, and if it is already listed there, you can select from the options. Alternatively, you can create a new business profile using the Gmail id associated with your business, or by creating a new one. 

After this, you will be asked to select the business category in which your business operates.  This section can be changed later if necessary, but it is a vital part of optimizing your brand page and should be filled out from the get-go. 

Pro tip: Ensure to check the box that allows Google to legally use algorithms that can scrape and pull your NAP data. 

Step 2: Choose how your business will appear on Google Maps

After successfully creating an account, you will be asked to enter the business address and redirected to Google Maps. Here, you may be asked to position your marker on the area in which your business is located. Click ‘Next’.

Once you have entered the business address/service location, you can proceed to add your contact information. 

You will be asked to enter a phone number and your current website URL. 

Let Google know which information you would like Google to display on your listing, and then click ‘Finish’. 

Your Google My Business listing is prepared for publishing. But before you do that, you need to get it verified. 

Step 3: Verifying your Google My Business listing

Your listing will be valid for use and published only after your business is verified. While the verification process is quite basic, it can take up to a week.

When your Google My Business listing is ready, you will be asked whether you would like to verify it right away. Once you assign permission to do so, you will receive a postcard by mail to confirm if you indeed represent the business that you are claiming.

This postcard will contain a verification code that you will be then required to add to your listing to verify it. Once done, your Google My Business listing will be published.

Optimize Google Maps

Apart from ranking on the Google SERPs, ranking higher on Google Maps has its own set of advantages. Once you have successfully published your Google My Business listing, verifying it on Google Maps is fairly straightforward. 

All you need to do is search for your business on Google Maps, and once you find it, click on Claim this business > Manage Now. You will be asked to choose a verification process that you can carry out using the on-screen steps. 

Create Content for Google Posts

So, you have set up your Google My Business listing and verified your business on Google Maps. The next step you should take is to create content for your Google posts, for boosting your Local SEO rankings. 

Google Posts is a tool that allows you to publish short posts, which will also show up in your Google My Business and Google Maps listings. There are four main types of posts that you can create: 

• What’s New: to keep your patients updated on recent developments and news
• Offer: to promote any discounts or offers that you may be providing
• Product: to promote or display products that you may be selling
• Event: to inform about or promote an event that you are hosting

Other than event posts, which run for 14 days, all the other posts will be live for 7 days before they are automatically deleted. Regardless, Google Posts is a great way to keep your potential customers engaged and helps add content for SEO. 

By using captivating headlines and images, and by integrating the right keywords, you can essentially turn your Google Post into self-promotional aid. You should also include CTA buttons, which redirect customers from local search results to your website. 

Submit Citations and Register on Local Directories

As a dentist, you would want to establish your authority in the domain to attract more patients. Submitting citations is a great way to do that and more. By getting mentions of you or your dental practice on other websites, you can target a larger audience and reaffirm your credibility. Local citations are also considered as a key ranking factor for Local SEO. 

Citations are quite helpful in reassuring the search engine about the trustworthiness and legitimacy of your dental practice. Finding the same details about your business on multiple websites lets Google know that your brand is genuine.

People still rely on directories such as Yellow Pages, or Yelp for finding the right service provider for their needs. So, registering your business on these directories is important. For context, look at the results for “dentist in sacramento roseville”: 

The first three non-sponsored results on the Google SERPs are of authoritative directories that dentists are enlisted in. Enrolling in these directories can help you achieve more visibility and add more citations to the web, thus helping your Local SEO efforts.

Once listed, ensure to update your citations if there is a change in the details. Conflict in details can make your business seem less authoritative or credible. You can use this free tool to find all your existing citations, and then update them using third-party tools such as Yext.

Monitor and Respond to Reviews

Reviews are a great way to provide social proof of your service quality to customers. People seek reviews from others before using a service or product as they find it more reassuring. Nearly 95% of people say that positive or negative reviews impact their purchasing decisions. 

As a dentist looking to boost the performance of your dental practice, you should make it a point to monitor the reviews you get and respond to them. This will help you build a relationship with your customers and encourage them to engage with you. 

Positive or negative — these reviews can help you to make course corrections and let your customers know that they are heard. Constructively take suggestions and thank them for their feedback, apologize in case of negative reviews, and promise to do better next time. These simple steps can keep your customers happy and satisfied for a longer time. 

Plus, more people will post reviews if they see that you actively respond to them. Encourage your customers to talk about their experience online when they are leaving after a consultation. Generating more reviews and ratings can improve your overall score, and attract more customers. 

Add Recognizable Testimonials and Before-After Photos

As discussed, providing social proof can help you stand out from the rest by making you look more credible. While ratings and reviews are one way to go about it, posting testimonials is another effective way to accomplish this. 

Testimonials help you go a step further than the ratings and reviews and showcase the good things that your patients are saying about you. Ask some of your loyal customers to pen down or record a testimonial about their experience. Post these testimonials with a photograph and name on your website and social media channels. 

If possible, add before and after photos along with the testimonials. If not, keep a repository of before and after photos of your patients to post on your website and other platforms. Visual evidence of your work and expertise can prove valuable in increasing the inflow of patients. 

Optimize On-Page SEO for Your Dental Practice

For your website to work as the perfect marketing tool that you set out to create, you need to balance the requirements of your customers and Google. On-Page SEO can help you with both these endeavors. On-Page SEO for dentists encompasses all the efforts that you take in the direction of optimizing your website to increase organic traffic.

The #1 result on Google SERPs gets nearly 32% of all clicks, so you should be actively trying to attain that top position. Building On-Page SEO performance can not only aid in improving the discoverability of your website but also improve the chances of getting more appointments. Here are a few steps you can take to manage your On-Page SEO effectively:

Include Your Keyword In The Title

Your website is going to contain a lot of content talking about your credibility as a dentist, and the services that you provide. The title is a highly impressionable element for your website as well as your patients. Your title tag will tell Google what your page is about. 

Even then, 25% of small businesses have not defined an H1 tag on their websites. 

So, you can stand out from the rest simply by optimizing your title and heading tags right from the start. Integrate high-performing keywords within your title so that it performs better in SERPs. 

Optimizing the title tag to meet SEO standards is also important. Based on these standards, the title tags should not be too wordy and should contain the primary intent of the webpage. The title should also be less than 70 characters.

Use Short, Descriptive URLs

URLs are still a minor ranking factor for search engines but can make a lot of difference in the bigger scheme. While they cannot make a page rank by themselves, you can increase the visibility of your site, by integrating keywords in the URLs.

Plus, having a well-defined and descriptive URL can help humans, as well as search engines, understand what your page is about. It should be concise and easy to understand for people. Well-created URLs can also act as their own descriptive anchor texts when posted on other websites. 

URLs should also not be too wordy and be optimized as per the SEO best practices.

Write A Compelling Meta Description

Meta Description is an HTML attribute and one of the factors that can influence organic traffic to your website. It is a summary of the webpage and can impact the click-through rates by giving customers a better idea of what the page is about. 

We mean it when we say brief, as the advised character limit for meta descriptions is set at 155-160 characters. Search engines usually display limited characters, under the titles. So longer meta descriptions will not only perform worse in search results, they would get truncated. 

Here is an example of a well-written meta description: 

The meta description is within the character limit and gives a brief idea of what to expect if you click on the link. Remember: the core reason to write meta descriptions is to provide value and to drive clicks. 

Optimize Your Images

Let’s face it:  Images are important. Whether you are posting a blog on your website about the recent developments in dentistry or adding a new service page — you will need images to compliment them. 

While doing so, ensure that you pay attention to Image SEO. Some of the key considerations in this regard, are:

• Name Images Appropriately: It all starts with the name. To let Google know what your image contains, have a filename that is apt and descriptive. The main subject of your photo should be in the file name. So, use names like “teeth-whitening-treatment.jpg” instead of “DSC00021.jpg”. 
• Use Descriptive Alt Text: Alt-text is the text that will be displayed in place of your image in case it is not displayed correctly on the website. It is considered to be an important attribute by Google, and will also portray that your website is accessible to visitors with visual impairments who use screen readers. 
• Compress Images: Ensure to compress images before you upload them as heavy images might take time to load and hamper the website experience. Use tools like ImageOptim or JPEGmini.

Add Internal And External Links

Link-building is an essential exercise for boosting the traffic to your website and for improving its online visibility. Internal links are those that contextually interconnect the various pages on your website. External links are those links that connect your web pages to other websites. 

Both kinds of links play a crucial role in boosting your SEO performance substantially. Linking to authoritative sources on your website will indicate that the content is supported with quality evidence. Moreover, having your links posted on other websites opens you up to a larger audience, and adds to your online reputation.

For instance, if you have a blog on the procedure for getting braces, you can add external links to financing options that patients can explore. Similarly, you can also add an internal link to another blog that you have on tips to care for your teeth after getting braces. 

Have Consistent NAP Details

Your Name, Address, and Phone Numbers are not necessarily permanent and could be subject to change for myriad reasons. The important thing is that you take the necessary steps in case this happens. 

First, ensure that these details are changed on your website. Next, ensure that these changes are reflected on all the online directories and listings where you have enlisted your business. As discussed earlier, inconsistencies in these details across websites could reflect poorly on your credibility. If you have dental practices at multiple locations under the same brand name, ensure to differentiate these locations by specifying addresses and phone numbers. 

Google puts a lot of emphasis on delivering accurate information to their users, so businesses need to keep their information updated. When it comes to your website, you can optimize it further by always providing succinct location and contact information.

Technical SEO for Dental Websites

Technical SEO refers to the changes that you can make to your website on the backend and server-end optimizations that can help your website get indexed effectively. Like the other parts of SEO, technical SEO can play an important role in determining the success of your website strategy. 

Here are a few things that you can do to improve the technical SEO for the website of your dental practice: 

Use HTTPS

When conducting secure transactions and easy authorizations became important for websites, the ones on HTTP, needed to add an SSL Certificate. HTTP and the SSL certificate combine to create HTTPS, now a preferred protocol for companies. 

While both application transfer protocols work great, Google rewards the ones that are on HTTPS with a minor SEO boost. The process of attaining an HTTPS certificate is lengthy and a bit expensive. But it can be beneficial in terms of providing additional security and performance boost to your website. 

Over the years, HTTPS has become synonymous with secure websites in the users’ eyes as well.

Create Targeted Website Structure

Once the user lands on your website, it is your website design and structure that is going to make them stay.  As a dental practice, you will need to find new ways to make your website more engaging for your users. 

Make the navigation and transitions on your website as smooth as possible, and address your target audience right away. Narrow down the common dental issues that make customers land on their website and pitch them to your website visitors through targeted landing pages. Add awards and accolades you have received to your website, to increase conversions. 

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

Mobile phones account for more than 50% of the total web traffic in 2021. 

People research, browse and purchase products and services on their mobile devices due to the sheer convenience and accessibility it offers. Considering this, every website that wants to perform well has had to adapt to a mobile-friendly interface, or at least make their websites equally responsive on mobile devices. 

Similarly, your website should be ready to track the mobile traffic just as well as the desktop traffic. Focus on quality of images, website loading speed, and other metrics that make up your website experience and test extensively on mobile devices. 

Speed Up Your Dental Website

If you have a lot of images and videos on your website, it can surely add to its aesthetic but slow it down significantly. It could be quite aggravating if this happens while multiple users are trying to access your website. 

Moreover, Google recently introduced the concept of Core Web Vitals — a defined set of website metrics that rely on the perceived user experience provided by your website. These metrics rely heavily on your website speed and play a role in determining your rankings. Use PageSpeed Insights to measure the speed of your dental website. The report will give you clear insights into areas of improvement. 

You will need a combination of different strategies to boost your website speed. You can use caching tools, compress images and media files, as well as amend your JavaScript code to ensure that your website is faster. 

Link Building for Dental SEO

Earlier, we discussed in brief that internal and external links can be quite crucial for your website’s SEO performance. The process of creating these links is known as link building. You can take a few approaches to accomplish this:

Build Links Through Content Marketing

Content can be a rewarding tool if you use it effectively. Not only does it provide multiple solutions for SEO performance, but also keeps the customers engaged. Content can provide you the means to inform and educate your customers about dental health and hygiene among other things. 

Moreover, you can leverage this content for building a subscriber base, to keep in touch with your patients. You can also provide social media buttons allowing readers to share your blogs on their profiles. Both these strategies are great link-building exercises. 

Additionally, you can provide FAQs on your website that can provide two-fold benefits. Firstly, you can provide important information to your patients. The second benefit is that if you use the right long-tail keywords, you can get substantial SEO benefits. 

Guest Post on Relevant Sites

Guest posting is a widely used method of building links through leveraging the domain authority of other websites. If your dental practice is still new, and you are working on building your reputation, guest posting can be quite advantageous. 

Start by conducting research and listing websites that would accept posts related to your domain. Rather than narrowing it down to a specific area of expertise in your domain, try to find topics that would be informative and understandable for potential patients. Add long-tail keywords within your post, for increasing the visibility of your post on the Google SERPs. 

For instance, target topics like “best ways to care for your teeth after a root canal treatment”, instead of a topic like “things you should consider while conducting a root canal for your patient”. Add links to your website in these posts to redirect readers to your website. 

Since you establish yourself as an expert in the domain through such posts, potential patients would be keen on reaching out to you for their dental issues. 

Conduct Frequent Competitor Research

Even if you are not the one to keep a constant eye on your competition, conducting regular competitor research and analysis is important. Such analyses and reports will give you insights into the strategies and efforts that your competitors are implementing to stay on top of their SEO game. 

It is a good practice to stay abreast of the latest developments and any offers that your competitor is introducing for their customers. Analyze if you can do the same or better, and if the answer is yes, let your audience know. Inform your customers about the offers you are providing, and redirect them to your website for booking an appointment.

Appear in Interviews and Podcasts

The most authentic way to show that you are an expert on a subject is to simply let people know that you are an expert. 

Customers tend to lean towards brands that they put a face (or a voice) to — even if you are a dentist. So even if your clinic is known for top-quality dental services, you need to exert your authority on the subject to promote it. After all, you are the primary representative of your clinic. 

Find social media channels and other mediums that you can appear on, for interviews as well as podcasts. Such modes of communication are great for engaging your potential patients and letting people know that you know what you are talking about. Such channels are also great for promoting your dental practice and showcasing some of your successful cases. 

Highly successful dental podcasts such as Dentistry Uncensored, and The Dental Hacks have built a substantial audience simply by talking about the domain that they know a lot about. 

Bonus Tips

Based on the strategies that have been suggested here, we have curated a few bonus tricks that can help you maximize your SEO efforts.

Setup Keyword Rank Tracking

Keywords are merely the top search queries that your target audience uses on search engines. A keyword that may be performing quite well at present, might not do that well a few months down the line. While some generic keywords will remain consistent in performance, some may fall off the radar quickly due to their specificity or seasonality. 

Regardless, it is a good practice to check how your keywords are ranking on Google, periodically. This will allow you to retain the ones that are working for you and remove the ones that are not performing well. 

You can use a free tool such as Keyword Rank Checker by Small SEO Tools to get insights on how a specific keyword is performing for your website.

Claim Your Dental Practice Name on as Many Social Networks as Possible

One of the most aggravating things that can happen to you while you are setting up your online presence is to have a doppelganger capitalizing on the name. Once a name is claimed, the process of claiming it back can be tedious and in some cases, even expensive. 

Even if you have not decided which social media platforms you want to use for promoting your website, it is a good idea to claim your brand name on as many platforms as possible. Use your own account and claim the name of your dental clinic as soon as possible so that no one else can use it.

Focus on Thought Leadership

Creating insightful content is the cornerstone of thought leadership.  The very definition of it is that individuals and companies who have expertise in a specific domain create content to share their insights and analysis with others. Starting your own YouTube channel or podcast is a great way to take a thought leadership approach to content. Such content pieces can position you as an authority in the domain and improve your credibility and brand visibility. If done effectively, you can be assured of increased patient traffic to your dental practice. 

Read More: How to Create Content That Sells & Converts – No Matter the Industry or Trends

Measure the Results of Dental SEO

SEO is anything but a one-time investment. It is a strategy that requires consistent efforts, time, and monitoring on your end. 

Some of the tools that we have discussed so far, such as Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, and Google Search Console will help you keep track of your SEO performance. However, you will need to be proactive about tracking the metrics and generating reports periodically.

By monitoring these metrics, you will be able to identify the strategies that are working for you, and the ones that need a bit more work. You can then optimize your SEO performance by focusing on these areas, and tweaking your strategy accordingly. 

Track your Dental Clinic’s Growth

The true success of your SEO strategy will be marked by the growth it can deliver for your dental clinic. So once you have an SEO strategy in place, you should track a few metrics: 

1. Phone Tracking – reports that provide insights on the parts of the campaign that led users to contact you. 
2. Traffic Reports – analysis of incoming organic traffic on your website to be carried out periodically.
3. Ranking Reports – reports generated on the ranking of the sites on the search engine.
4. Form Tracking – tracking of the geographical region at which people who have filled the form on your website are located.

Tracking these metrics will give you a better idea of the benefits that your SEO strategy is producing for your dental clinic.

Don’t Have Time? Hire a Reputed Dental SEO Agency – Growfusely

While the aforementioned tips and tactics can help you build a strong SEO strategy, you can truly benefit a lot from partnering up with an expert who has a track record of helping dental businesses achieve desired results. With Growfusely, you have an experienced team that can strategize and implement an SEO strategy that works best for your dental practice.

Dental SEO: Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Dentist SEO?

Dentist SEO or Dental SEO is a term used to describe the SEO strategies that dentists implement to attract new customers and boost growth for their dental clinics. 

• How much is Dental SEO?

While some agencies estimate an average spend of $1000-$3000 for dentists opting for dental SEO, you can start from much lower and consistently increase your spending based on the results these efforts are fetching for your business. 

• How do you do dental SEO?

You can do your own Dental SEO by making an SEO-focused website, and implementing off-site SEO efforts to the best of your capabilities. Alternatively, you can opt for a professional SEO agency that can assist you every step of the way. 

• Why do dentists need SEO?

Every business or professional who wants to enjoy sustainable growth needs to consider SEO, and dentists are no exception. Due to the increasing competition, having a strong online presence and featuring high on Google SERPs can give you a marked edge over your competitors.

• Do dentists need SEO?

Yes, they need SEO to be able to create a strong online presence for their dental practice and for promoting their brand where their customers are.

• Why do dentists need local SEO?

Local searches form a big chunk of the total search queries on Google. Through Local SEO, dentists would be able to rank higher on the search results for relevant local search queries.